


Fragmented

by queenofinfinitespace



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-01-26 09:05:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12553980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofinfinitespace/pseuds/queenofinfinitespace
Summary: This is a collection of scenes, vignettes, detailing the trials of Sigyn, beginning before the events of the first Thor movie.It begins with the marriage of Loki and Sigyn.





	1. Vows

**Author's Note:**

> This story may, as it progresses, come under new warnings for various graphic descriptions. I will tag things as they arise. But for now, the early stuff should not be a problem. If you think I should tag something, let me know, I'd be happy to!

~~~

"Tomorrow. It is very soon."

Sigyn sighed, but did not turn around. She was sitting, leaning in front of her mirror, staring, exhausted, as one of the innumerable ladies of Asgard plaited her hair, merely a practice before tomorrow's ceremony. Thoroughly worn out by the day’s activities, Sigyn was toying with the edge of her sleeve, twisting it through her fingers nimbly, allowing her mind to wander. Sif was sitting, restlessly, behind her, perched on the edge of her bed, meeting the reflection of Sigyn's eyes, and her voice recalled Sigyn’s thoughts. Clothed in the remnants of her guard uniform, Sif had peeled off the outer armored layers, leaving behind her soft deerskin leggings, and loose undershirt, and was working slowly to untwist her own hair from its coiled bun. 

"It is a joyful occasion Sif, do try to smile." 

"It holds no joy for me, I am losing you!" Sif threw herself dramatically back onto Sigyn's bed, huffing a ridiculously loud sigh to match. The mock despair in Sif's voice was enough to make Sigyn smile, and Sif matched her grin. 

"I am not going very far! Such dramatics for a change of room?" Sigyn's room would in fact remain for her use, but she would move tomorrow officially into shared chambers with the prince. Sigyn laughed as she responded, affection rushing through her chest. 

The lady braiding her hair remained silent through the exchange, the same bland, blank look of all the ladies that served in Asgard. They were taught to never appear as though they were listening to a conversation Sigyn knew, but she also knew that they most of all held the most gossip behind their passive stares. Sigyn allowed but a moment more before she dismissed the lady for the night, tiring of the conversation she and Sif were almost having, careful never to say more than they would favor to be repeated in the halls of Asgard. 

Once Sif was sure the door was firmly sealed, the light smile drained off her features, the way the shadows drop suddenly at sunset. 

"Tomorrow Sigyn."

"I am aware." Sigyn kept her voice light, refusing to match Sif's edgy tone. 

Silence reigned for a moment. 

"Tomorrow." Sif repeated. 

Tomorrow she would be a married woman, to the second son, a prince of Asgard, Loki Odinson. 

Sif stood slowly, meeting Sigyn's eyes again in the mirror, and held her gaze as she crossed the room slowly. Green into brown, Sigyn thought. She shivered, but the room was stifling, a banked fire crackling merrily in the corner. 

Sigyn told herself to remember always the way Sif's lips fit into hers, told herself to remember the taste of her, steel and leather, and something sweeter than Sigyn could ever imagine. 

Sigyn told herself to remember this moment. 

Sigyn told herself many things. She could not say whose lips she imagined when her own met the prince's on the next eve, but sweetness prevailed she supposed. 

Or so she told herself. 

~~~

She watched the muscles in his back writhe and sinuate like some ancient underwater creature. Each movement of his arms and fingers procured a call and response of his ligaments, contorting to match the deftness of his work. Sigyn watched from her perch on the window sill, contemplating the deliberate movement of his strokes across his medium, bending light and reflection to his will, as though they were strands of reeds. How simply he moved light, though Sigyn knew the unusual casualness of his work, it was not a trade shared by many, and served to add to both the awe and the wariness surrounding the younger prince. 

“Sigyn? Are you alright?”

Sigyn focused her eyes back in, drawing back her gaze to find him staring fondly at her. 

“Hmm?”

He laughed softly, a gentle chuckle. “I’ve been speaking to you for some time, I take it you did not hear?”

Sigyn looked gracefully ashamed, “No, love. I am sorry, what were you saying?”

He watched her face for a moment, a smirk toying at the crease of his lips. “What were you thinking?”

“Oh? Nothing I suppose, just allowing my thoughts to wander.”

“Must have been riveting,” He said with another soft laugh, “I asked you a question three times.”

She searched his face this time, trying to confirm the lightness of his tone in the blue flash of his eyes. 

“I am sorry,” she said sincerely, “Just tired I suppose.”

“Yes, it has been quite a long day.”

Sigyn was never sure when either of them began accepting that as an excuse. 

He turned back to his work, “What do you think, love?”

She stood up, stretched her arms up to ease the tension in her back, and moved to peer over his shoulder. She rested her chin gently at the curve of his neck. Sigyn felt herself glued to the canvas once she looked, trying to search out every subtle change of color and follow each delicate shade as it morphed into something new. He had likened the Great Hall of Asgard to the untamed landscape outside the city limits. Vegetation and plants grew up between the cracks, blending seamlessly the regality of the hall with the wildness of the forest. Reds and golds, the colors of Asgard, mixed with every shade of green and blue and brown, forming new colors wherever they met, creating a blended background upon which he had imposed detail. She could see clearly the pillars of the hall, but they were murky, entwined with vines and thickets, reclaimed by the insistent force of nature’s will. The gilded ceiling gave way to a myriad of blues, and light poured in in delicate strands. Sigyn felt as though she were looking at Asgard eons into the future, as if the Realm Eternal had finally discovered its own mortality. It was not a sad scene however, Loki had instilled the silence and secrecy of ancient ruins. Shadows lapped at the edges, encouraging the idea that sunset was approaching, and all would dissolve into night. 

Red and gold, the colors of Asgard, she thought, and green, the color of Loki.

With true sincerity, Sigyn complimented the work, and traced her fingers across the marks of his, matching him. Color weaving and the bending of light was a rare ability. Though realistically anyone could learn, Loki’s ability to make his works semi-permanent was unusual, and shared by no one else in Asgard. Sigyn knew of other light weavers across the realms, and Loki had contacted a few to exchange ideas now and again, but in Asgard, this gift alone was his. However, light is transient, and does not remain, and often, after a time, Loki’s works would fade, a washing of light back to their blank mediums. Sometimes they lasted longer. Loki beamed as Sigyn praised his work, noticing each detail and stroke in turn, allowing him a moment of recognition, even just between them. Frigga often hung some of Loki’s works in the halls of the castle, but it was a pale sort of praise compared to the type he hungered for. The last one she had hung however, an abstract grouping of color, had been mocked and destroyed by Thor and his drunken companions during one of their tirades. Loki had sulked for days, even after Thor’s sober apology. 

Sigyn pointedly ignored the vague, golden shape at the back of the work, something akin to the Allfather’s great throne. She allowed herself to believe that perhaps it was something else, allowed Loki to believe she did not see it. But it stood proudly, at the center, the light forming a gentle halo around it. In the twisting shadows and woven colors of the portrait, it was possible for Sigyn to believe that she was merely imagining the gloomy, obscured form sitting upon the great chair, and drew her eyes elsewhere, up to meet the soft blue of Loki’s.

"It is captivating Loki," allowing a rush of tenderness to color her words. 

His smile was reply enough, and he reached his arms up from where he was sitting, to pull her close. She settled in his lap, her face tucked against his neck, his arms circling around her back. He smelled deeply of paper and ink, a dusty, stale, though not unpleasant smell. 

"Been in the library have you?" Her voice somewhat muffled by the cloth of his shirt. 

"Mhmm, a bit of research for the guild." 

They sat in comfortable silence, allowing the room to settle around them. Loki absentmindedly toyed with strands of her hair, and Sigyn felt herself drifting into unconsciousness, sleep pulling insistently at the edges of her thoughts. 

Just as she was about to doze off, Loki's voice, though soft, pierced her awareness. 

"Had I drawn you beside me, would you have noticed?" He was speaking in his half voice, and Sigyn knew he was talking to himself, believing her asleep. Her brain was too abstract, and confused to reply, drugged with exhaustion, she pretended she had not heard. Loki sighed gently. 

The last thing Sigyn was aware of was Loki lifting her gently, and carrying her to their big shared bed, tucking her in and climbing in beside her. She finally floated to sleep on the fumes of ancient tomes and archaic scrolls, wrapped in Loki's arms. 

~~~

Now, years past, Sigyn thinks often of that portrait. Loki had destroyed it later, the way he had destroyed many things in the end, a star imploding. 

Sigyn thinks of the that forsaken throne, so clearly imposed in the center of the scene, glowing in a gilded highlight, drawing the eye toward it, the only shape in the work with definite form. 

Sigyn thinks often of that portrait, willing herself to reach out, and speak softly of the things that had lain between them. 

Now, Sigyn remembers, she had destroyed it, not Loki. She had pulled and ripped and shredded until her fingers bled, and still had not stopped. She had not been satisfied until the work was nothing but ribbons of color, washed and fading into obscurity, utterly unrecognizable. 

~~~


	2. Broken Things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I got totally caught up in school and finals! I should update this more frequently hopefully in the future.

~~~

The door slammed open and crashed forcefully into the wall, hinges rattling and the scattered objects on the shelf rattled discontedly. Sigyn jumped sharply and banged her elbow with a yelp of surprise. She had been reading, utterly absorbed in her thoughts until Loki crashed into the room, the air humming around him, furious emotion clinging to the hollow of his throat. For a moment Sigyn thought she could see something writhing under his skin, as though possessed by some ungodly wraith, twisting his soul into darkness. His eyes were dark and swirling as he gritted his teeth, barely containing himself. The objects on the shelf rattled again and the door slammed shut with an ominous thud. 

Sigyn took a deep breath, “Loki.” 

He clenched his fists. The window rattled in its frame and Sigyn felt the currents streaming through the air, hot, angry tendrils of fire and energy seeking an outlet. She saw the tendons of his neck straining and the bones of his shoulders creasing against his skin as though trying to break free, as though his body was a breath away from disjointing entirely and falling to pieces on the floor. He sought her eyes desperately, a drowning man. Sigyn allowed his eyes to drill into hers, a heavy, weighted gaze that communicated more than Loki would ever need to say. Scattered objects and possessions in the room were beginning to lose their shape, twisting and writhing and warping as though pulled apart by a curious child, eager to spill their contents. 

Something shattered. 

Loki’s jaw was firmly clamped shut, and Sigyn could swear that the grating of his teeth was audible enough to be heard in the hall. Blue into green, his eyes stared through hers, until they finally lapsed shut, and he let out a quick burst of air, before gasping harshly, his lungs convulsing. 

“Loki. Look at me. It is alright.” 

Her voice was gentle, a calm, collected barricade to his panicked fury. She rose, placed her hand on his chest, and felt him quivering under her palm. She pushed, as carefully as she could, and coursed her seidr through his, draining his energy through her body and releasing it harmlessly as light that glimmered off the walls and winked out peacefully. She heard someone’s-Thor’s-mocking laughter echo in her head, and bit down on the wave of nausea that followed. He began to calm infinitesimally, his energy bleeding through her, stabilized by her own magyck. The shattered trinket began to shiver on the ground, pieces slowly working themselves back together and rising gently back to its place on the shelf. 

At once, his body loosened and he softened under touch, muscles retreating back to the confines of his body and flesh rising again, supple and soft against hers. He reached his hands up, still shaking, and placed them on either side of her face, cupping her head and resting his forehead against hers, pressing slightly. His breath mingled with hers and she wrapped her arms around his waist, twisting like a vine until indistinguishable from one another. 

“Let’s go.” She breathed. 

“Where?” 

~~~

_“If you could change a single moment, which would you choose?”_

_Eyes glittering, the question poured from his lips like wine. Or blood._

_A breath passed. Another._

_“I never would have let them in.”_

_The drop of his smile was a fraction of satisfaction. The downpouring of his features, the drain of his face, it was almost a remembered dream._

_“It was you!”_

~~~

_“Run back home, little princess!”_

__

_Ice cracked under Sigyn’s feet._

__

_“Damn.”_

Pulse thundering, Sigyn clawed her way into consciousness. Sweating and panting, she rolled over to sit up, frantically pawing at the insufferable tangle of bedclothes. Breath eluded her for a moment, until Sigyn found again that air began to creep back into her lungs. Quivering, she laid down, burrowing back under the blankets against the sudden chill of the incessant cracking of ice and the howling of winter winds.

~~~


	3. Children of Asgard

~~~

“You are not to behave so again, is that understood? You will _not_ interfere with the duties of the guards, which, I may reinforce to you, are to protect you. Breaking their line causes confusion and distraction and endangers all of us...” 

If Loki was to be honest, an irony for the silver-tongued prince, the Allfather’s words were a bit too harsh. The Allfather, having seen only the confusion and mild panic of the guards as Sigyn stepped outside their protection, had taken the occasion to reprimand Sigyn for “disobeying the protocol of the royal guard.” 

Sigyn stood before the Allfather, folded inward, shoulders hunched in attempt to shrink from the Allfather’s unforgiving gaze. Her right hand was grasping her left forearm, as though cradling an injury, and at first, Loki had thought she had sustained a wound in the shuffle of horses and guards, but the sleeve of her gown was unscathed, leaving Loki to surmise that the skin underneath was as well. Straight backed and stiff, Sigyn appeared contrite. Loki knew better. 

On and on, the torrent continued. Loki had taken to shifting restlessly behind Sigyn, stamping his feet, sighing loudly, and rolling his eyes in a manner not entirely subtle. Sigyn contrasted him, face blank and shoulders square. This was hardly the first time either of them had been brought before the King as a result of some mischief, usually of Loki’s design, but this time…  
Enough however, was enough, and Loki was beginning to feel uncomfortable. After all, Sigyn had protected the little girl who had run excitedly out into the crowd to look at the horses. If Sigyn had not swept the girl up, she surely would have been trampled. To all who looked on, Sigyn had clearly saved the child. The mother's relief had been tangible as Sigyn had returned her daughter, and had praised Sigyn almost violently. Yet, Sigyn stood now against a torrent of discipline, as if she had wandered off instead of protecting a small child from certain injury. Time wore on. Bored, hot, tired, and hungry after the endless procession through the streets, Loki’s ability to be quiet was quickly waning. 

“Father-“ 

“Hush Loki, I did not ask you to speak!”Undeterred, he tried again. 

“Father is it not enough? We are all tired and scattered from the day’s events. She meant no harm, let it be over?” Rain had evaded the city for a fortnight and hot, grimy dust seemed to coat every surface, and it clung to all of them, staining everything a faint reddish brown. Coupled with a long procession on horseback, Loki was eager to bathe and sink into his soft bed. 

“Enough! Be silent!” The Allfather’s forceful tone echoed dully off the glimmering stone walls of the small chamber, ringing harshly. In the corner of Loki’s eye, Sigyn jumped. 

Sigyn hid her features, simply a blank statue upon with the Allfather’s fury crashed, weathering stone into glass. Loki caught Sigyn’s hand twitch, and her shoulders crease briefly. A subterranean shudder passed through her, and Loki involuntarily reached out. He turned, eyes pleading to the Queen to interfere. Frigga returned his gaze with a firm, closed look. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. Tapping his foot noisily, and scratching at the insufferable dust, he weighed his option of interjecting again. Clearly, Sigyn was inclined to wait this out. Loki was taunted by the image of his bed, and less resilient. Suddenly, Sigyn made a convulsive movement, and for a moment Loki thought she was choking. She raised her head, eyes blazing, and met the Allfather’s gaze in a stark challenge. Loki wished sorely he had been paying closer attention, as to recall what exactly his father had said the moment before. Sigyn’s voice was flat, strained in a way that made Loki uneasy, and the look on her face left a strange feeling in his stomach. As she spoke, she clutched her arms inward in a sharp, aggressive gesture, pressing them against her chest as though to protect herself. 

“I am unsure, Allfather, of your disappointment! In Asgard, is it uncommon to treat children with such simple kindness as to ensure their safety and well-being? To return them to their mothers? Children of Asgard! Do they all know such callous uncaring cruelty? I risked myself only for the sake of a child!” 

Harsh as grating stone, her voiced rang in the small chamber for a moment. The room was entirely still. Loki could swear he heard something crack, and his skin pricked. Afraid to breathe as to break the silence, Loki held his breath. He ran his hands through his hair, causing a small cloud of dust and dirt to scatter into the air. No one else moved. Sigyn was frozen, eyes downcast and body rigid. 

Loki would bet the highest stakes possible that Sigyn had meant to say more, but he saw a look of utter shock cross her face, followed by something else. Her mouth snapped shut as quickly as it had opened, and she ducked her head, eyes fixed solidly on the floor. Loki sought his mother’s eyes desperately, silently begging her to speak, but Frigga would not meet his eye, and Loki was suddenly afraid to look up at his father. His heart beat hotly in his chest, and something uneasy slid in between his ribs, breath still caught in his throat he dared not make a sound. The glass in the window shuddered. 

When he finally gained the courage, after too long a silence, to look at his father, Loki found that the king’s face was impassive. Admittedly, Loki railed verbally against his father regularly, as he found himself often disciplined for some ridiculous mischief nearly every day. But Sigyn had never, in all the time Loki had known her, even in adolescence, raised her voice above delicate politeness in the presence of the King. Sigyn, born in Vanaheim, bordered on formality at all times and did not possess the same levity that Loki and his brother did in matters of the Allfather. 

Odin had not moved, his face was closed, heat burning in his eyes. Loki cringed when the King spoke; Sigyn flinched. 

“Leave us Loki, I would speak to Sigyn privately.” 

~~~

“Shall we to bed then? I am covered in dust.” Her face was blank, and utterly closed off. She was visibly unharmed, but Loki surveyed her closely regardless, not quite sure what he was searching for. 

“What happened? Are you alright?” Pulse fluttering rapidly, Loki shuffled on his feet. 

“Of course. I am fine Loki, this is not the worst he could do I think.” 

“What? Do what? What happened?”

She gave him an odd look. “Nothing happened.” She laughed, a strange, convulsive, hiccuping gesture, and Loki placed his hands on both of her upper arms. 

“Sigyn, look at me.” Green into blue, her eyes bored into his. “Are you alright? What was his punishment?”

“Punishment?” She laughed oddly again, a dry, grating sound of rustling papers and crushing stone. “There is no punishment my love, I am not a child. Let us to bed.” She brokered no argument and set off at once towards their chambers, and Loki had no choice but to follow. He persisted, attempting to color his nightmares. She gave nothing in return. Lights had been dimmed for the evening, casting the hall into otherworldly vagueness. Impish and distorted reflections accompanied them to their rooms, taunting and pointing and laughing in mock reality. 

Finally, frustrated with his interrogation, she stopped dead in the hall, her hand resting on the door to their rooms, and fixed him with a firm look, appearing to grab hold of him through her gaze. The dim lighting threw her face into sharp contrast, and her eyes seemed to glow furiously green against the shadowed pallor of her skin. He could not remove his eyes from her. Blue black shadows writhed down the side of her face, contorting her features. Bathed in shadowy light, she had a dreamy phosphorescence. 

“I do not know what you mean my dear. Nothing has happened.” She turned curtly, opened the door, and disappeared into the gloom within, a wraith vanishing into the cursed mist of Niflheim. 

~~~


End file.
